Pride Was A Riot, But It Shouldn’t Be
When liberation politics are subverted into illiberalism
Hi everyone,
The other night I had dinner at Balaboosta, an Israeli restaurant in the heart of Pride Central in the West Village, with one of my closest friends who happens to be an elder gay. He is not Jewish and no one cared about this, just like many of the people living in Israel that co-exist with their diverse neighbors with similar levels of tolerance and lack there-of as here. We had a mostly quiet dinner of exceptional dishes surrounded by a good chunk of the restaurant’s friendly queer staff in a place that felt remarkably safe for everyone. It was nice.
The act of being yourself doing normal shit in your community and not having to riot for it, I think, is a completely underrated benchmark of progress.
The Village has been palpably tense in preparation of this year’s Pride as the conflict overseas continues to drive a wedge into communities everywhere across the U.S., particularly dividing queer communities now turning Gaza into their radical pet cause. Only a few blocks away and just two days before, ACT UP, the acronym for AIDS Collation to Unleash Power — “a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals, united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis” — decided to lean into the “anger” part to stage a dramatic “die-in” protest outside Outright International, a fellow LGBTQ+ advocacy group, because they weren’t sufficiently centering Palestinian queers during Pride month and had the audacity to highlight other queer people. You know, all of the other queer people living completely normal and free lives elsewhere around the world where queerness is just so universally accepted. It’s not like the individuals living within the 64 countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality also need advocacy during Pride month.
Given that AIDS funding is actively being stripped, you’d think that would be the top priority for an AIDS advocacy group, but instead it’s been pushed to the back burner and replaced by watermelons across ACT UP’s social media channels with “No Pride In Genocide” posts and action items like decorating Fire Island in sanctimonious signs.
The ACT UP die-in overlapped Pride Philly, where Queers for Palestine decided to co-opt the entire moment once again by blocking the parade and allegedly culminating in a fight later that evening. Similarly, ahead of SF Pride, organizers released a statement implying Palestinians are more welcome than Israelis at the parade, and even after this bigoted choice, it didn't even change anything. Activists still demanding a boycott for the crime of associating with a "known Zionist.” Meanwhile, Bay Area Jewish group The Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) had a single request to add one sentence: “SF Pride welcomes LGBTQ+ Jews, Israelis, Muslims, Palestinians, and allies, marching as their full authentic selves.” Apparently this was too much to ask for.
In all of the aforementioned instances on Instagram, commenters were quick to gleefully exclaim “Pride was a riot!” as though creating a hostile environment for queer Jews and allies during Pride was some extraordinary win towards queer liberation, indicative of a complete lack of nuance about a complex situation in a place certainly more than half of them have never stepped foot into. Anyone who disagrees is labeled a “genocide supporter” and promptly excommunicated, which is rich coming from a group that considers themselves liberal, human-centered independent thinkers.
This was the statement from Queers 4 Palestine:
Queers 4 Palestine Philly extends our solidarity to all those resisting colonial genocide around the world. From Palestine to Sudan to the DRC to Ayiti, we call on queer people of conscience to ignite a global intifada against colonizers and capitalists who seek to use our identities, our beauty, our brilliance as justification for unimaginable violence. We reject all celebrations of pride if they are not grounded in the struggle to end genocide.
We write this anti-pride statement as an honoring of the history of queer militant struggle against imperialism, outlined in the STAR Manifesto: “we are; a part of the REVOLUTIONARIES armies fighting against the system. POWER TO THE PEOPLE”.
QUEER AS IN D34TH 2 AMERIKA.
QUEER AS IN D34TH 2 ISRAEL.
QUEER AS IN OFF THE PIGS.
LONG LIVE THE QUEER INTIFADA.
Don’t worry, none of this is antisemitic, just “anti-Zionist.” I’m sure these liberationists will make fabulous, humane leaders who have everyone’s best interest at heart.
Of note, Israel has nothing to do with the crisis in Sudan, Haiti, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are all “militant struggles” among many that are not even being advocated for to same levels of extremism. In fact, Sudan is actually under Islamic nationalist rule, while Hezbollah—the Lebanese Shia Islamist terrorist organization—and Iran, which now goes by the Islamic Republic of Iran, also have a hand in multiple conflicts right now, including Syria, which no one seems to care about even though it is the largest displacement crisis in the world.
The #ceasefire crowd is noticeably silent about Hamas’s latest rejection of the deal sitting on the table right now to end all of this with the removal of Israeli forces, right of return, rebuilding, and essentially no penalty to a terrorist organization that routinely starts wars in exchange for the hostages as Hezbollah decided to pop in to exacerbate the situation and burn Northern Israel—which no one’s eyes are on because it’s not an AI generated image of the snow-capped mountains of Rafah that do not exist. Imagine if they screamed “Take the deal, let’s end this!” instead of “Now, Now, Now, Now, Burn Israel to the ground” or carrying signs that say “Kill Hostages Now.” I’m pretty sure that hate speech isn’t protected as free speech, but I get that “coexistence is possible” is not as catchy or poetic.
The problem with slogans and symbols is they can be co-opted and frequently are, specifically by hate groups. There are literally hundreds of them. Every time someone argues that “globalize the intifada” is about nonviolence resistance, I can’t help but remind them that chanting “death to America, death to Israel” isn’t a very effective way of conveying that and earning brownie points among people you supposedly mean no harm.
Midnight Books, a book shop in Los Angeles, recently decided to host an event propping up “The Islamic Republic of Iran, Revolution and Imperialism” and how it pertains to Palestine with a friendly photo of AK-47s that surely invites critical thinking and peaceful cohabitation. This type of anti-American radicalism in the name of liberation is becoming painfully common and does not particularly help the Palestinian people in any respect.
There is selective sense of ideology, outrage and weaponized identity and victimhood about defining modern colonialism and imperialism being adopted by young people everywhere with very little introspection about the value of choice words and their meaning. Using that logic, the entirety of the Spanish-speaking world should probably start fixing issues with their own indigenous communities, pack up their internalized guilt, and return to Spain rather throw molotov cocktails at Israeli embassies, but pretty fitting considering their longstanding history hating Jews. Pan-Arabism is also inherently colonialist and rooted in exclusionary ethno-nationalism, yet no one seems to have a problem with it. Yet, beneath it all, it is a master conspiracy of those goddamn Jews!
What’s remarkable is the queer community has specifically latched onto this the loudest. Is it reverse psychology? What is happening?
June 12 marks the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando where Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 53 people at Latin Night in the name of Islamic fundamentalism and disdain at US policies in Iraq and Syria that could have saved everyone the trouble as a strongly worded letter or protest rather than a massacre. I couldn’t help but think about it as I saw another queer food content creator talk about how disappointed he was that more people aren’t “speaking out against the genocide” now nine months into this conflict where news and social media centering this has eclipsed even larger conflicts and crises around the world by 165%. Are these people even going to address the shooting or co-opt it into another delusional connect to abstract visions of mass liberation with another die-in uplifting them as martyrs? Maybe they could do it Hamas style, shooting automatic weapons into the air while screaming, “Death to America! Death to Jews!”
The people consistently creating hostile spaces and blockades against Jews in spaces where they would otherwise be free to express themselves (within reason) are the same ones who frequently violate these codes of conduct while fancying themselves as victims. Every other week, there’s another spread in the New Yorker about how sad we feel for the people who spent two full weeks taking up space in encampments at their universities while barring students and faculty from entering who had different opinions from them and what a slight this is on democracy and academic institutions. Good news: the money Jews were investing is being divested and put back into yeshivas so you can assuage your guilt as you happily lap up totally clean and queer-friendly Qatar, Saudi and UAE money, go to a Catholic or Jesuit university, or accept that maybe community colleges are underrated.
A great example of this is outspoken martyrdom rooted in victimhood is actor Sara Ramirez, most famously known as the first bisexual non-binary and objectively worst character on the Sex and the City franchise, who has been using their platform for their latest role: martyr for the Palestinian cause. After spending the past several months shouting about genocide anywhere that will listen, they decided to take a self-care break to narcissistically honor themselves with a giant pat on the back, ending with “progress>perfection🌿.” No, actually, words and actions matter while Jews around the world are getting beaten, run down, firebombed, and murdered by random people emboldened by the moment while being gaslit that they’re overreacting and oppressive silencers. If your sense of empathy doesn’t end at a border and you don’t want to be labeled an antisemite, maybe you can sit down and shut the fuck up until you get it right.
An ideal world would be a few years back when there was inter-tribal mingling, sharing of the common dinner table, discussions of third culture, and a push away from extremism, but I guess peace isn’t radical enough for some people. Within days of October 7, queer-owned restaurant Lil Deb’s Oasis in Hudson decided to post an inflammatory statement about Palestinian oppression that didn’t even acknowledge the victims of the Nova massacre. The opportune moment to bring entire communities of the diaspora together over the dinner table was lost, drawing a deeper line in the sand while pretending like this was some progressive action as community-centered establishment. Since then, that has been the overall posturing: us vs. them. You’re either with us or against us. Not a single Jewish-owned restaurant implied exclusion to any community because they raised a flag in solidarity of Israel—in fact, many of them have Pride flags up—yet nearly every restaurant that did was hit with antisemitic graffiti and walk-outs.
Which brings me to Pride as a symbol of resistance: Pride was a riot, but does it still need to be? Why do some of us believe that violence is always necessary and the only way to solve conflict? Who is entitled to such violence? Or perhaps do some people need to examine their own anger issues being recklessly wielded to drive the liberation bus into a wall?
As a reminder, the first Pride was in 1969, helmed by a black bisexual trans woman and sex worker, Marsha P. Johnson, after patrons had had enough of routine police raids at the Stonewall Inn—a mafia-owned gay bar operating a a private club without a liquor license (unsurprisingly better protected at the time than simply having a gay bar)—in which anyone cross-dressing would be arrested. This was during a time when you would be thrown into psychiatric facilities for homosexuality, which was still being treated as a mental disease. In response and resistance to this raid, a multi-day riot spontaneously broke out, culminating in the declaration of Christopher Street Liberation Day and the first Gay Pride March the following year as the forefront of the Gay Liberation Movement that would take shape and grow for years to come, including the month we are currently celebrating as queer rights continue to be stripped here and abroad.
Obviously, this was and remains a very politically driven movement about autonomy and identity, still a heavily contested hot button issue among conservatives and why so many queers cannot help but hate on corporate pinkwashing and advertising that now dominates the month—even though it also represents progress against discrimination and the normalization of acceptance.
It also made sense, then, why the Black Lives Matter Movement would have an offshoot of Black Trans Lives Matter to recognize the specific struggles of black trans people and police brutality. I personally marched with Black Trans Lives Matter completely inspired as they held a colorful nightly parade with music playing from Stonewall and up Hudson Street towards Chelsea. The connect of Pride and BLM was actually very linked in solidarity against police brutality, and that’s why it worked, even as that contingent wasn’t widely accepted either.
I’ve tried to steer away from bringing up BLM or black people, generally, as a comparison point (including the erasure/tolkenization of black Jews across all communities including within mainstream Judaism) to what is happening right now for a variety of reasons—even though BLM has made plenty of errors along the way by publicly aligning themselves with the Palestinian struggle, including throwing photos of paragliders on social media referencing Hamas’s massacre on 10/7 as “freedom fighters” that has piled onto tensions. However, individuals with much larger platforms have taken it upon themselves to enter the chatroom to speak on behalf of an entire population of people who theoretically should have diverse ideas, I figured it was probably worth addressing.
This past week, stand-up comic and television host W. Kamau Bell used his platform to equate the threat that white people feel about “Black Lives Matter” as synonymous with “River to the Sea,” on Threads as some intellectual posturing—which, unfortunately, it is absolutely not. “River to the Sea” is an actual threat of violence and genocide to remove Jews by eliminating the state of Israel from the river to the sea. In Arabic, the actual slogan is “River to Sea, Palestine will be Arab.” Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, was a call for police to stop shooting black people, just like #MeToo was supposed to be “Please stop raping and sexually assaulting us.” It would be cool if someone would consider changing the slogan if they want more liberal Jews to get behind it. How about “Take the deal” or “New elections for everyone”?
Former Bernie Sanders National Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray, who has openly called 10/7 fake and the victims are liars, is constantly rewriting very clear Hamas statements to create a false narrative, and has such a thin skin about being debated that she’ll walk of stage while saying she hopes someone drops a bomb on the building, is now using her enormous platform on The Hill to eye roll at the families of hostage victims in the name of Palestinian advocacy. How exactly does that work?
Notably, the #artists4ceasefire collective, who refuse to address the hostages in any of their posts, has been silent about the ceasefire deal and rejection. Probably because Hamas demands originally included a temporary ceasefire with intent to reload weapons. Sounds a little like a “war” to me.
This isn’t to say that the Israel side has clean hands. There are plenty of racist, sexist, homophobic, fatphobic, transphobic morons because that is not an exclusive problem to any one specific demographic. However, the pushback against Queers for Gaza is not so much about the protesting against war nor is their advocacy of Palestinians. They can and should use their right to express themselves and if they did a normal anti-war protest, they could be out there every single day. It’s the harassment, hate speech, and violence guised as activism that continues to cross a line and is borderline anti-American (if not fully, gauging from the Queers 4 Palestine rhetoric), putting them squarely at level with the folks from January 6.
If you surround yourself entirely with people who reinforce your worldview of being “on the right side of history” to frame a binary of only oppressed and oppressors, then you are less likely to actually engage in debate and diversity of thought — a core tenant of freedom of speech and not totalitarianism.
Israel, the only place in the entire Middle East that hosts Pride and routinely accepts queer Palestinians and other queer refugees from across MENA whose alternative to be outed is being thrown off a roof, changed their flag this month to widen the yellow stripe in honor of the hostages still being held by Hamas, including POC and queer people, which is being mocked in the queer community as though we haven’t changed that flag three times. I looked for all of the “Yay, Genocide!” signs but couldn’t find them for some reason! Maybe they’re hiding somewhere in the tunnels that Hamas uses to siphon aid and resources that could be distributed to their own people rather than starving them out and blaming Israel for it. While your eyes are on Rafah, let me know if you spot them!
Debate is an inherently Jewish value. If activists who have never even stepped foot in the countries they’re rallying about didn’t consistently uplift a call to violence against Jews, they could protest and write their criticisms freely. Jews and Israelis do it all the time against our own people. Most of us don’t like Netanyahu and think he’s prolonging the war and should have stepped down a long time ago. Only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to keep job after Gaza war, so he has obviously been at fault for prolonging this situation—but so has Hamas. Instead, the protestors intentionally violate codes of conduct with intent to make it a true “act of resistance” with intent to get arrested to draw attention to their cause—just like climate activists throwing paint and soup museum works while supergluing their hands to bring attention to their cause—while conflating against U.S. racial politics to justify antisemitism as “resistance by any means possible.” When radical protesters are predictably shut down as they hope for, they scream “we are being silenced.”
As I’ve said before, nothing would make myself and many fellow Jews who believe Israel should continue to exist happier than if Gazans were able live normal lives and have Pride. Everyone should have that. If you are a progressive Jew/Israeli, you probably can’t stand these psychotic messianic settlers who are absolutely not LGBTQ+ friendly and are sick of Hamas—an elected government of Gaza run by billionaires that shoots anyone who dissents that won’t stop instigating conflicts. Israel, of course, is not completely without blood on their hands, and if the Palestinians and their allies could accept some responsibility about the current situation—which never seems to happen—maybe this could end and we could move into the future instead of waiting with baited breath for the next attack.
The peer pressure of performative groupthink guised as solidarity isn’t exclusive to this current conflict in the queer community. As my friend and I shared dinner, he shared an anecdote about a recent encounter at a Chicago watering hole where a Millennial girl tried to shame him over not having a Pride flag on his property. It wasn’t really an intentional thing, but as someone who came out at a time when that was still not completely acceptable, who vividly remembers thinking he was going to die during the AIDS crisis, and spread the ashes of a loved one that he was the only family member to visit in the hospital, he didn’t really need a flag to prove something. Naturally, she was embarrassed as she should be, because having egg on your face isn’t a good look.
Today, a flag does represent something in communities starting to make headway on queer acceptance. But having one or not, speaking out or not on international conflicts, existing in this polarity of good and bad, and blocking people who disagree with you does not make you liberal or liberationist. It does not advance the cause for Palestinians or queer people to consistently leverage the importance of the riot at Stonewall any more than the riots on January 6. It is up to queer people to speak out and stop being cowardly in their own communities, leaving this work solely to Jews to defend themselves as the situation exacerbates coast-to-coast. Pride might have been a riot, but it shouldn’t be.
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I agree with pretty much every word. It’s astonishing we’re here. Great work, thank you.
Fabulous piece.